As he sat in the crowded room of equation solvers, Ishmael scrutinized the furnishings of Savant Holtzman’s estate, smelled polishing oils, flower bouquets, perfumed candles. This place was clean, comfortable, and warm . . . far more pleasant than the slave barracks on the muddy river delta.

The boy should have counted his blessings.

But this unwelcome place was not Harmonthep. He missed his small boat, navigating through rivulets in the tall reeds. He especially missed the evenings, when the Zensunni would gather in the central hut on the highest stilts to tell stories, recite fire poetry, or simply listen to his grandfather read comforting sutras.

“I hate this place,” Aliid said beside him, speaking loudly enough that he drew a scolding glare from Tio Holtzman himself.

“Perhaps you would rather return to the mudflats or the agricultural fields?”

Aliid frowned at his own outburst, but met the scientist’s steady gaze. “I hated those places too,” he mumbled, but not by way of apology.

All work stopped. All eyes were fixed on him.

Holtzman shook his head in disbelief. “I simply do not understand why you people complain about everything. I feed and clothe you, I give you easy assignments that advance the cause of humanity— and still you want to crawl back to squalid villages and live in disease and filth.”

The inventor looked genuinely angry. “Don’t you understand that thinking machines are out there trying to crush every living person? Just imagine all the humans they slaughtered on Giedi Prime, and no one could stop them! Omnius doesn’t care about your religion or your foolish politics against civilization. If they find your little hovels, they will destroy them, burn them to the ground.”

Just like the Tlulaxa slavers did to my village, Ishmael thought. He saw Aliid’s dark eyes flash and knew that his friend was thinking the same thing.

Holtzman shook his head. “You fanatics have no sense of responsibility. Luckily, it is my job to force it on you.” He went back to his scribing board, angrily jabbed his fingers at the symbols. “Here are segments of equations. I need you to solve them. Simple mathematics. Try to go through the steps I showed you.” His gaze narrowed. “Each correct answer will earn one full share of daily rations. If you make mistakes, you go hungry.”

With a heavy heart, Ishmael turned to the papers and computational devices before him, doing his best to follow the supposedly simple calculations.

On Harmonthep, all the children in the marsh village had received a basic education in mathematics, science, and engineering. The elders felt that such knowledge would be important for them, when their civilization rose again and the faithful constructed great cities like those in Zensunni lore. Ishmael’s grandfather, like many village elders, also spent time instructing the young people in the sutras, in logical and philosophical conundrums that only the tenets of Buddislam could solve.

On Aliid’s home of IV Anbus, the closely orbiting moons changed the seasons dramatically, causing the planet to oscillate. Thus, the boy had been taught a different branch of mathematics and astronomy, because the ever-varying calendar affected the floods that roared through polished red rock gorges, where the Zenshiite cities had been erected. Flood management workers required sophisticated calculations to understand the variances. Aliid had learned the techniques in order to help his own people. Here, though, he was forced to assist the overlords who had enslaved him, and he resented it.

Aliid’s first assignment on Poritrin had been to work the cane harvest. He had labored for weeks hacking at tall reeds, from which sweet juices were turned into sugars or distilled into Poritrin rum. The fibrous cane residue was used to make Poritrin cloth. He had wielded a sharp scythe, chopping down woody stalks that splattered sticky syrups. The stalks were harvested after heavy rains when they were most laden with juices, and heaviest to carry.

Toward the end of the cutting season, their master had delivered them all to the slave markets in Starda, after accusing them of starting a suspicious fire in the cane silos and destroying half a season’s crop. Aliid told Ishmael of this with a lilting smile, but never confessed to having participated in any outright sabotage.

Now, Ishmael bent over his calculations, checking and rechecking his math by sliding bars and moving counters on the calculation device. Already his stomach was growling, since Holtzman— angry about the many mistakes committed the previous day— had vowed not to feed the solvers until they proved they could do the work. Most of the slaves grudgingly completed their assignments properly.

Several days later, after the new solvers had adequately performed their exercises, Holtzman gave them real work. At first, the inventor let them believe it was merely another test. Ishmael could tell from his expression and agitation, though, that he was counting on these results rather than simply putting the crew through their paces.

Aliid worked diligently, but Ishmael noted from his expression that he had something devious in mind. Ishmael wasn’t sure he wanted to know what it was.

After they had worked on numerical simulations for several more days, Aliid finally leaned over to Ishmael. “Now it is time to make a few subtle changes,” he said, grinning. “Small enough that no one will notice.”

“We can’t do that,” Ishmael said. “They’ll catch us.”

The dark-haired boy gave an impatient frown. “Holtzman has already checked our work, so he’s not going to redo all the math. Now that he trusts us, he can focus on some other scheme. This is our only chance to get even. Think of all we’ve suffered.”

Ishmael could not disagree, and after having heard Bel Moulay’s talk of bloody rebellion, this seemed like a better way to express their displeasure.

“Look.” Aliid pointed at the string of equations, and with his stylus made a tiny mark, changing a minus sign to a plus sign, and then moved a decimal point to a different part of the equation. “Simple enough mistakes, easily excused, but they will yield dramatically different results.”

Ishmael was uneasy. “I understand how it could harm Holtzman’s inventions, but I do not see how this will assist us. I’m more concerned with seeing that we go back home.”

Aliid looked at him. “Ishmael, you know the sutras as well as I, perhaps better. Have you forgotten the one that says, ‘When you help your enemy, you harm all the faithful’?”

Ishmael had heard his grandfather utter the phrase, but never before had it meant as much to him. “All right. But nothing that can appear deliberate.”

“If I understand anything about this work,” Aliid said, “even a small miscalculation will cause plenty of damage.”